Captains log - Final Post

This is my final project. The pictures shown are pieces of my Rubiks cube and how they fit together. The pictures aren't the greatest because I wasn't prepared to make a blog post, and we are running out of time. I was supposed to give a presentation but that ended up falling through. Anyways, the pieces of my cube or going to print in about an hour, and hopefully I can assemble it tomorrow morning and see how it works.

This shows how the pieces of my cube fit together

                                       This has been a PSA,
                                                                         Captain out

Captains log - Week 18

Last blog post ever!!!      
       This week was honestly kind of a bust. Every individual piece is ready to be printed, but together as a whole, they are not. For some reason I cannot get the sizes to match up and fit together correctly. I haven't had much time to work on it due to my life guard classes that go until 9 pm every night, but with the little time I have had to work on it, I haven't been able to fix my issue. I'm going to try and test print the corner piece again though, because I know that it's the correct size since I've already printed it before. Except this time I'm hoping it won't have any poly/normals issues. I'll probably have everything fixed by this weekend. I hope.

       The project I enjoyed the most this year is easily the one I am working on now. Because it's something that genuinely interests me, and having my own 3D printed cube would be awesome. Considering I didn't really work on all of the class projects due to the box that I was building, I can't really say what I wish we would have worked on longer. I do remember that building the face on our box model was a little rushed, so i'll just go with that.

                                      This has been a PSA,
                                                                         Captain out

Captains log - Week 17

     I made a lot of progress this week. I took the MAX file home so that I could work on the cube on a better computer, and it was a great idea. This week I finished the inner mechanism completely, and it should function properly once it's printed. I also made a lot of progress on the center edge piece. I'm having some normals issues with the piece, but it's slowly getting better. The only other thing i'm having an issue with is that some pieces may not have mesh smooth because it creates issues. I think I should be ready to print by Monday or Tuesday of this upcoming week. Unfortunately, I have no pictures to show because the file is no longer here with me.


                                      This has been a PSA,
                                                                         Captain out

Captains log - Week 16

       This week was very successful for the modeling of my cube. I got the design for the inner mechanism totally worked out, and it works! I did a test print of the model, and it spins correctly, and is strong enough to work. Another plus side is that it fits with the rest of my pieces

All that's left for me to do is add 5 more pegs for the inner mechanism, and then i'm ready to print. That won't take long because all I need to do is copy and paste the one I already have 5 more times and then center them to where they need to be.
 

                                      This has been a PSA,
                                                                         Captain out

Captains log - Week 15

This week I attempted to make the inner mechanism to my cube. It was most definitely a failed attempt because I don't know how to model it, and I don't really know what the interior of the inner part looks like because I can't take that part apart. I know I have to use cylinders, and I have to make them lock together and spin, but I don't really know how to do that. Hopefully i'll be able to figure something out at my house because these school computers are getting really hard to work with. Anyways, that's really it for this week.

                          This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 14

       This week was kind of a failure. I tried to print my center edge piece, and it came out horribly and didn't even work. I don't know what it is with my models, but there are always issues with the poly's and normals that I don't know how to fix, and I think that's why the print came out funky. I would post a picture of the print, but there's no sense in uploading a picture of a poorly shaped rectangle. I also started working on the actual center piece, but I haven't gotten that far on it yet. Considering we've only had 3 work days this week, not much has gotten one.
Here's a picture of what I've done on the piece so far:

So yea, that's basically the only thing worth showing.

 
                          This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 13

       Okay, so this week has been huge in terms of progress on my cube. I fixed all of the measurement issues I was having with my center edge piece, and I now know that it will work perfectly in my cube so long that it prints correctly. There may be some poly or normal issues, so i'll have to see about that. But here's a picture of the basically finished center edge piece:

I still have to boolean one side of the piece, but for the most part it's finished. I also know that it fits together nicely with the corner pieces, and I made somewhat of a demo Rubiks Cube to prove that.
Here's some pictures of that:

So yea, that's basically as far as I have gotten so far.

                           This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 12

       This post is also late because I was at a college seminar thing during my animating time on Friday of last week, and I didn't even realize I was supposed to post that day until just now. So on week 12 I made huge progress on the center edge piece of my cube. I actually thought that I finished it, but after I did some testing, I realized that I made some issues with my measurements so the piece was actually un-proportional  to the corner piece I already have completed. Due to this mistake, I had to go re-measure the pieces on my real cube to get the correct measurements. I didn't have enough time to put that into action though, but the corrections will be seen on the Week 13 blog.

                         This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 11

       This weeks post is a little late because my computer was not working on the friday that this was supposed to be posted on, and there were no other open computers to post from. This post may also be slightly shorter because my space bar is only working 30% of the time, which is really annoying and makes me not want to type. Anyways, I don't particularly remember where I was on my project during this week. The past 3 weeks have basically been a big blur of trying to accomplish the same goal. I'm pretty sure I was starting to animate my center edge piece by the end of this week. I'll just post finished product pictures of the piece in my week 13 post.

                      This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 10

       This week was very successful in terms of my Rubiks Cube project! I successfully modeled the corner piece to the cube, and I actually got to 3D print it. The cool thing about that is it actually works when I put it into my stock rubiks cube. So I can already tell this project will work out the way I want it to as long as I can model everything correctly. I had some issues with Poly's and normals though, so I have to figure out how to fix that. It caused part of the print to mess up a little bit, but it didn't effect the functionality of the piece. It just messed up the aesthetic view of the whole thing.

                                                   This has been a PSA,
                                                                                      Captain out

Captains log - Week 9

     This week was pretty successful to be quite honest. I mainly worked on my new rubiks cube side project. This week I measured all of the measurements to each individual piece of the rubiks cube, and wrote them down on diagrams I created. Then I decided to make some practice animations, and I think I actually made a use-able piece for the project. I made a center edge piece, and a corner piece. The center edge piece didn't turn out so well, but the corner piece turned out fantastic and I can probably use it for each corner.

If I am able to animate each piece like I did with this one, then I will be able to successfully 3D print my own cube.

This has been a PSA,
                                                           Captain out

Captains log - Week 8

       This week I came up with a new project/idea! I'm going to model and 3D print my own rubiks cube! I haven't decided on what I want each individual side to be, and how I want the patterns to work, but I know that I am going to make a rubiks cube. I have started measuring the pieces, and I have looked at every piece to see how they need to be modeled. This project is going to be interesting.

The box project is still not over yet, however. I just need to figure out the issues with the scanning program before I can really proceed anymore. I'm trying some new software, so we will see how that works. 

  
                                 This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captains log - Week 7

       This week was VERY short, and Very uneventful. There were only two real work days, not including today. The reason for this is because we had Monday off due to presidents day, and yesterday (thursday) we went to a assembly to watch belly dancing and k-pop dances. But on the two days that we did work, I solely worked on my box. I finally got the lazy susan attached correctly, and everything is ready to go. The only thing left to do is I need to make some legs for the box so that the bolts don't get in the way.

                                     
                                 This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captains log - Week 6

       Yay! I am finally caught up with all of my blog posts!

       Anyways, this week was kind of a bummer. Nothing very exciting, or productive got done. I have still been encountering issues with the Kinect and the Reconstruct me program. I have looked it up numerous times, downloaded drivers, updated windows, and done pretty much everything I could think of. None of which worked. I plan on bringing the kinect home and trying it on my computer, because I think it's time to wipe the slate clean.

       The other thing that happened this week is that Mr. Smith told me that I still need to be uploading blog posts every week. I somehow came to the conclusion that I no longer had to upload any about a month ago. So I spent all of today writing and posting blogs for the past few weeks. That's about as exciting as my week got.

                                This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captians log - Week 5

       So, now we are getting back into the time period that I can remember more clearly. On week 5, or last week, I didn't work on the box at all. Instead I worked on the software to go with the box. I downloaded a program called ReconstructMe. The point of this program is to be scan items and turn them into a 3D mesh. The only issue is we needed a camera to do the physical scanning, while the program did all of the mesh making. Luckily, Mr. Smith had an old Xbox Kinect lying around and he brought it in for me. After plugging it in and downloading all of the drivers, I ran into some issues. The program would not register that the Kinect was plugged in. I could not figure out why, and I messed with settings and drivers for a large portion of this week. I was completely unsuccessful. The program and Kinect refuse to work together, and I need to figure out why.

                                     This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captains log - Week 4

       So, due to the misunderstanding Mr. Smith and I had, I am still not 100% about what I actually did this particular week. I'm pretty sure that I simply finished painting the box, because I don't I finished it totally in week 3. The one thing that I do know that I accomplished during this week was I got the lazy susan set-up figured out. I drilled the holes in the bottom of my box, and I got all of the bolts ready to be placed. I even attempted to secure the lazy susan onto the box, but because I don't have a permanent bottom support yet, it was kind of difficult. Everything is pretty much all set-up and ready to go. It's 90% complete at this point, and will be finished shortly. 

                                    This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captains log - Week 3

         There has been a terrible accident.

         I forgot to make my weekly blog posts for the past 3 weeks due to a misunderstanding between Mr. Smith and I.

         So on the week of January 20th - 24th, I mainly worked on my box project. I quite honestly don't remember the exact stage of building I was in at this point, but I am highly convinced that I was painting my Box. So we're just going to assume that's the point I was at. I grabbed a paint brushe and a paint bucket out of the closet and went to work. The color that was chosen was a creamish-white. It's essentially white with a tint of yellow or brown in it. I painted the whole inside and outside of the box, and I plan on adding stickers and maybe even a 3D printed sign for aesthetic purposes. That was about as far as I got on week 3.

                             
                                    This has been a PSA,
                                                                        Captain out

Captains log - Week 2

       This week wasn't necessarily a very big week for me in terms of animating. I think out of the 5 total days in a school week, I only animated for one of them. The reason for the being I was busy building and finishing my 3D scanning box. That project has been going quite well. I'm nearing the finishing steps on it, but it's taking me a while to finish. The only things I have left to do are to paint it, attach the lazy Susan, and attach legs to the bottom to elevate it off of the platform slightly. Once I have completed those tasks, we will have a fully functioning box. The only thing that would be left would be to get the Kinect software that we can use to do the actual scanning and processing. But I think Gregg is in charge of that.

       In terms of actual 3D animating, the only thing I really did was work of the face of the Joan of Arc project. It went pretty well, and it wasn't that difficult.Unfortunately I do not have any images of what I did yet because the computer I am currently using is not hooked up to the server yet and I have no way of retrieving my project or information. That is basically it for this week.

                         This has been a PSA,
                                                            Captain out

Captains log - Week 1

       It's been so long since I've posted. I've lost track of time. We have to start from the beginning. We have to go back to week one.

       So this week has been pretty interesting. We started modeling our "Joan of Arc" character, and that has been going pretty well. By following a tutorial on the internet, I have (so far) been able to make a character using the box modeling technique. This character is nowhere near completed, but it's something.

       To complete this task, I started with the reference images. By following the tutorial, I placed two planes onto my scene and pasted some images on them. These images help me trace the outline of my character while I continue to model her. The way that I am actually modeling her is very simple. I started with one simple box, and the rest of the body is just an extrusion of that one single box. By using the extrude tool, I managed to manipulate that single box into the character I want it to be. But just extruding the boxes isn't really enough. I also have to move the polys and vertices into the correct position so that each body part comes to a proportional size.

Anyways, that's all I've been really working on this week. It is a fun, yet difficult project.


                            This has been a PSA,
                                                                  Captain out